Absolute 52 Cruiser vs Trawler

[MapisM]

What i plan to do is hire a skipper in the USA, put him/her in the VIP cabin and spend a month sailing from Charleston.
...
My thought are that its easier to learn to drive in an automatic car than it is in a manual

If I may challenge your train of thought - and I promise it'll be the last time - why aim at learning what is easier, rather than what is harder and unfamiliar?
A half decent skipper can teach you in much less than a month how to helm any boat with traditional controls.
Which is something you'd better learn anyway, because it's not a matter of IF the joystick will pack up, just of WHEN.
And since IPS boats do not have any thrusters, because they rely entirely on the joystick-driven independent pods steering, when the joystick does fail, you'd better know how to control the boat without it, and with no thrusters at all.

But the good news is that this is very far from being rocket science.
In sharp contrast with what IPS boat sellers can tell you, putting a twin engine boat on shafts + bow (and possibly also stern) thruster where you want is as easy if not even easier than with IPS boats.
And with much less chances to find yourself stuck with no control half way during the maneuver.
Truth is, what the joystick does is NOT make the boat more maneuverable or easier to control.
Just more intuitive/instictive, nothing else.

 

[Bajansailor]

To recap - Shane, in your first post you mentioned :
"I'm looking to buy a 50ft yacht for a liveaboard for about a year to do the ICW, Florida Loop and maybe the Caribbean before heading off to the Mediterranean next summer."

Folk on here have given you much sound advice, especially Two Hooter with his links - these are good links, and you ignore them at your peril.

And then in post #20, you say :
--------------------------------
You are right, I do have my heart set on the Navetta 52 for a few reasons that I guess are personal choices....

The helm station design and forward positioning
Helm station door
Volvo Penta joystick
3 x cabins with 2 x heads with separate showers
large one piece windscreen
crew cabin that I'm having converted to a utility room
No seating on flybridge aft
BBQ on the swim platform
------------------------------------------
Your comment about the crew cabin is worrying - have you placed an order already, re how you are having it converted - or should this be that you intend to convert it IF you do buy one?

It does rather sound like the good advice in these 20 posts has not really sunk in.

A 'proper' trawler yacht is by far a much better beast for 'doing the Loop' as others have mentioned above, but I think it is worthy of repeating here.
And if you don't believe anybody in Europe (or the Caribbean for that matter, like me) telling you that, then contact Steve Antonio and pay him to tell you the same thing.
Pretty much ANY trawler yacht will be more suitable than an Absolute or Navetta.

You also mention 'heading off to the Med next summer' - with an Absolute or Navetta you will have to ship the boat there (or sell it in the USA, and then start boat hunting again in Europe).
If you have a displacement trawler yacht with long range fuel tanks, you can drive your boat to Europe, and visit Bermuda and the Azores along the way - and both of these destinations are well worth visiting.

There are many Great Harbour trawlers like this one doing what you want to do -
Great Harbour Yacht & Ship Brokerage, LLC (Gainesville, FL)

OK, they look a bit tubby - but they are proven to be seaworthy (same as Nordhavns et al), and with a range of 3,500 miles, you can bypass Bermuda and the Azores (but why would you want to do that?) and still arrive in Europe with a lot of cheap diesel from the Old World.
They are no longer being built, but info about them is still kindly provided on the Builder's webpage.
GH47

 

[ShaneAtSea]

To recap - Shane, in your first post you mentioned :
"I'm looking to buy a 50ft yacht for a liveaboard for about a year to do the ICW, Florida Loop and maybe the Caribbean before heading off to the Mediterranean next summer."

Folk on here have given you much sound advice, especially Two Hooter with his links - these are good links, and you ignore them at your peril.

And then in post #20, you say :
--------------------------------
You are right, I do have my heart set on the Navetta 52 for a few reasons that I guess are personal choices....

The helm station design and forward positioning
Helm station door
Volvo Penta joystick
3 x cabins with 2 x heads with separate showers
large one piece windscreen
crew cabin that I'm having converted to a utility room
No seating on flybridge aft
BBQ on the swim platform
------------------------------------------
Your comment about the crew cabin is worrying - have you placed an order already, re how you are having it converted - or should this be that you intend to convert it IF you do buy one?

It does rather sound like the good advice in these 20 posts has not really sunk in.

A 'proper' trawler yacht is by far a much better beast for 'doing the Loop' as others have mentioned above, but I think it is worthy of repeating here.
And if you don't believe anybody in Europe (or the Caribbean for that matter, like me) telling you that, then contact Steve Antonio and pay him to tell you the same thing.
Pretty much ANY trawler yacht will be more suitable than an Absolute or Navetta.

You also mention 'heading off to the Med next summer' - with an Absolute or Navetta you will have to ship the boat there (or sell it in the USA, and then start boat hunting again in Europe).
If you have a displacement trawler yacht with long range fuel tanks, you can drive your boat to Europe, and visit Bermuda and the Azores along the way - and both of these destinations are well worth visiting.

There are many Great Harbour trawlers like this one doing what you want to do -
Great Harbour Yacht & Ship Brokerage, LLC (Gainesville, FL)

OK, they look a bit tubby - but they are proven to be seaworthy (same as Nordhavns et al), and with a range of 3,500 miles, you can bypass Bermuda and the Azores (but why would you want to do that?) and still arrive in Europe with a lot of cheap diesel from the Old World.
They are no longer being built, but info about them is still kindly provided on the Builder's webpage.
GH47

I think that maybe the confusion here is because i used words like Trawler, Loop, ICW and sailing.

I want to buy a really easy to sail beautiful contemporary designed yacht that i can sail into the sunshine that requires little or no effort to get to where i am going.

I can afford a boat with a crew but my privacy is very important to me so i want luxury and the technology to get me to the next port with as less hassle as i can.

I know i will make mistakes. All first timers do.

Thanks for your input guys

 

[Bajansailor]

Oh dear Shane, I see oxymorons here.......
Definition of OXYMORON

And do you now not want a trawler, nor 'do' the Great loop, or the Intra Coastal Waterway?

I want to buy a really easy to sail beautiful contemporary designed yacht that i can sail into the sunshine that requires little or no effort to get to where i am going.

All that you need for this is a shaft drive (or 2 even), a bow thruster, an autopilot and an electric anchor windlass basically.
Oh, and a couple of plotters. Plus a back up GPS or two.

i want luxury and the technology to get me to the next port with as less hassle as i can.

Here is the oxymoron - to achieve this (re least hassle) the boat should ideally be as simple as possible.
If you have an IPS system with joystick controls, this is definitely not 'keeping it simple'.
The words 'luxury' and 'advanced technology' are not happy bed fellows with 'as less hassle as I can'.

One definition of 'cruising' which is often quoted is 'boat maintenance in paradise'.
You will quickly find that you are doing maintenance everyday if you fill your boat with complicated systems - or paying other people to come and do it for you.
I once met an American yachtsman here who had a wonderful 48' yacht that was bristling with all the latest technology - he didn't have crew, but he had a tame grotty yachtie on a little steel boat who followed him from port to port like an obedient labrador.. At every anchorage the GY had full time employment fixing all the things that had broken or needed replacing during the previous passage, and this work funded his cruising kitty very nicely.
If you buy an Absolute Navetta, it might be worthwhile looking for your own tame GY to follow along behind........

These folk have been around the world in their 50' Nordhavn -
Dirona Around the World
They are currently in Norway. And this Blog is a wonderful account of their travels - including their maintenance trials and tribulations (of which there are many). Fortunately James is an accomplished Mr Fix-it, so they do not need to have a tame GY in tow.

 

[Portofino]

Welcome to the forum Shane .
Any one else about to buy a new boat ?

 

[Bajansailor]

Are these fishies Piranhas, lurking and all ready to devour new boat owners?

 

[TwoHooter]

Shane, you sound like you have both a plan and the the funds to back it. Go for it. Plenty here will tell you why what you plan is madness, it sounds great.

Perhaps that's the most useful post for you. Really, I mean it. And you have an answer to the question you came here to ask. You are buying the version with the bigger fuel tank which is good, and when you drive the boat at full displacement speed (ie: slowly) you will probably have a decent range. I'd be interested to know what that is.

I can see why you like the boat. It's gorgeous.

Boatbuilders like Absolute are very good at designing their products to suit a target market, and they've clearly done a great job on this occasion because you are the target and I'm not - I couldn't afford this boat and you can. The things you like about the boat wouldn't cross my mind but I suspect that the things I would want to know about such as stability, handling in various sea states, electrical installation details, fire suppression, fuel management, access for unblocking the blackwater pipe run from the heads to the holding tank, and so on may not even be on your checklist. You said this will be your first boat, to learn on. That's great, very few people buy one boat and stick with it for ever. By the time you buy your second boat you'll know what really helps to make boating safe and a pleasure and what doesn't.

At the risk of being boring I'll give you one more link, the Wheelhouse system. This is a great aid to someone like you. It provides a systematic approach to maintenance and does away with a lot of the tedious record-keeping. It gives you access to a lot of the manuals and tech literature for the systems on the boat. It's not cheap but having written my own equivalent I rather wish I'd bought it for our boat years ago.

 

[Greg2]

I can’t add much to what has been said other than to be a little more, and perhaps inappropriately, direct - sorry ?

Do you understand that twin shafts make a boat quite easy to handle and that whilst IPS might well make things very simple for a newbie it does nothing in terms of helping to appreciate boat handling and the factors that have to be taken into account such as wind, current and the characteristics of the boat. To my mind, opting for IPS as a way of getting into and understanding boating has little prospect of being a successful strategy. Sure, really liking a boat is a pretty good reason to buy it but please understand what is really behind the decision and don’t kid yourself. And don’t underestimate the potential grief that IPS might bring.

I fully appreciate that boating can appear to be the dark arts to the uninitiated but with a bit of training it can be understood with relative ease. Do a couple of courses, maybe do a charter and then decide.

In terms of advice I hesitate because I don’t want to simply project my own opinion but I would say that loving a particular type of boat can be a transient thing that is affected by knowledge and experience. Just saying ?
.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

OP, buy what you like, you seem to be blessed with the means to do so.

But it seems an odd strategy to join a forum, ask some questions, ignore or dispute the input from others with waaaaaaay more knowledge and experience than you, who have taken the time to respond in some detail. Then defend your own opinion when you know nothing about this topic.

So why ask in the first place?

 

[TwoHooter]

OP, buy what you like, you seem to be blessed with the means to do so.
But it seems an odd strategy to join a forum, ask some questions, ignore or dispute the input from others with waaaaaaay more knowledge and experience than you, who have taken the time to respond in some detail. Then defend your own opinion when you know nothing about this topic.
So why ask in the first place?

I'm a tiny bit troubled by that because this forum is a really friendly and supportive place. Five years ago I knew nothing and the help I received on here has been invaluable. I wouldn't want Shane to feel he is going to get nothing but criticism if he comes back with further questions. If you look at the original post we were asked a simple question about the difference between two hull forms in similar models by the same manufacturer, and it was obvious that the purchase decision had pretty much already been made. I don't think Shane came here to ask us whether we thought either of the Absolute boats was the right choice for the ICW and the Caribbean. He might have liked a bit of enthusiasm in support of his choice, but the fact that most of us don't feel able to provide that shouldn't be interpreted as suggesting that he shouldn't have posted in the first place.

Shane, if you do have specific questions in future and you think we might be able to help, please do ask.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

I'm a tiny bit troubled by that because this forum is a really friendly and supportive place. Five years ago I knew nothing and the help I received on here has been invaluable. I wouldn't want Shane to feel he is going to get nothing but criticism if he comes back with further questions. If you look at the original post we were asked a simple question about the difference between two hull forms in similar models by the same manufacturer, and it was obvious that the purchase decision had pretty much already been made. I don't think Shane came here to ask us whether we thought either of the Absolute boats was the right choice for the ICW and the Caribbean. He might have liked a bit of enthusiasm in support of his choice, but the fact that most of us don't feel able to provide that shouldn't be interpreted as suggesting that he shouldn't have posted in the first place.

Shane, if you do have specific questions in future and you think we might be able to help, please do ask.

That's fair enough of course. I just have the impression that he's already made his mind up and wants others to tell him it's the right decision...

 

[Bouba]

I think that maybe the confusion here is because i used words like Trawler, Loop, ICW and sailing.

I want to buy a really easy to sail beautiful contemporary designed yacht that i can sail into the sunshine that requires little or no effort to get to where i am going.

I can afford a boat with a crew but my privacy is very important to me so i want luxury and the technology to get me to the next port with as less hassle as i can.

I know i will make mistakes. All first timers do.

Thanks for your input guys

Go for it Shane???

 

[ShaneAtSea]

OP, buy what you like, you seem to be blessed with the means to do so.

But it seems an odd strategy to join a forum, ask some questions, ignore or dispute the input from others with waaaaaaay more knowledge and experience than you, who have taken the time to respond in some detail. Then defend your own opinion when you know nothing about this topic.

So why ask in the first place?

Thats not true at all.

A few people have told me that IPS engines are good but are susceptible when its comes to collisions with objects which in the ICW is very likely.

However, i want to wake up every morning and look at my boat and smile so if its a choice of looking in the mirror and im wearing a nice £10,000 suit or slippers and a cardigan then im gonna go for the suit.

I looked at the Nordhavnen and the Grand Banks but i hate the interiors. They remind me of my grandmas house.

I want a boat that i can take down the ICW or anchor off a beach in Ibiza. But the best bit will be standing on the flybridge at 6am, hose in hand.......washing down the decks while the sun rises. Hungover probably

This forum has been great and i will be asking alot of questions about watermakers and lifejackets over the next few months.... at least i know the opinions will be honest

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Thats not true at all.

A few people have told me that IPS engines are good but are susceptible when its comes to collisions with objects which in the ICW is very likely.

However, i want to wake up every morning and look at my boat and smile so if its a choice of looking in the mirror and im wearing a nice £10,000 suit or slippers and a cardigan then im gonna go for the suit.

I looked at the Nordhavnen and the Grand Banks but i hate the interiors. They remind me of my grandmas house.

I want a boat that i can take down the ICW or anchor off a beach in Ibiza. But the best bit will be standing on the flybridge at 6am, hose in hand.......washing down the decks while the sun rises. Hungover probably

This forum has been great and i will be asking alot of questions about watermakers and lifejackets over the next few months.

Fair enough Shane, apologies if I misunderstood you.

 

[Bouba]

Thats not true at all.

A few people have told me that IPS engines are good but are susceptible when its comes to collisions with objects which in the ICW is very likely.

However, i want to wake up every morning and look at my boat and smile so if its a choice of looking in the mirror and im wearing a nice £10,000 suit or slippers and a cardigan then im gonna go for the suit.

I looked at the Nordhavnen and the Grand Banks but i hate the interiors. They remind me of my grandmas house.

I want a boat that i can take down the ICW or anchor off a beach in Ibiza. But the best bit will be standing on the flybridge at 6am, hose in hand.......washing down the decks while the sun rises. Hungover probably

This forum has been great and i will be asking alot of questions about watermakers and lifejackets over the next few months.... at least i know the opinions will be honest

Some people here are traditionalists and are slow to adapt. When I first started most here were telling me to go steam powered

 

[mcanderson]

Some people here are traditionalists and are slow to adapt. When I first started most here were telling me to go steam powered

Stream! Modernists!!!

 

[ShaneAtSea]

Fair enough Shane, apologies if I misunderstood you.

Dont apologise........ im actually looking at the Manhattan 52 now. Its has the Volvo Penta D11's with shaft drives and i can still have the Joystick.

I find the Sunseekers a bit bland and overpriced but their British and the customer service is really good. Plus i'll have alot of fun in a cruiser.

I just need to see what stock is available in South Carolina or Florida

 

[Portofino]

I asked ^^^
“ Shane how technology minded are you ? “

let’s revisit the clutch issue , which has improved but basically still flawed and glossed over seemingly, folks enveloped in the marketing BS .
marine gearboxes and clutches

Then allow me to attempt to lay it out as simply as I can .
i,ll use pictures .
Hers a cone clutch note the surface area limitations in a outdrive or pod .A pod ( IPS ) is just a bigger outdrive in clutch terms .

Think of the mass , the momentum of the boat( s) over the years as they have got bigger ......We are up to a 52 specifically , but IPS instals are creeping up the ladder mass wise .Below is very simple pic of how cone clutches work ....think of the surface area available, the potential SA limited by the leg size .



Now see typical clutch packs of a conventional “twin disc“ set up ....Hurth and TD .As the masses of the boats increase in applications so does the clutch packs .....sized for longevity.
But crucially see with the clutch packs how you can adjust the SA in line with the mass .......thus if done correctly mating the Hp sent out by the motor with the mass and momentum of the boat .

So with IPS even with a computer ECU / hydraulics controller attempting to ease the cones engagement.....you are in a highway to rapid wear if there s a lot of FRFRFR and more so if you try to use the joystick , because of the huge mass and SA mismatch is amplified by the multiple engagements .

Theres no way around this .

Big boats needs shafts + proper twin discs multi pack wet clutches .

Cone clutches are the stuff of sterndrive little boats .....who’s mass / momentum can cope .

 

[Portofino]

Dont apologise........ im actually looking at the Manhattan 52 now. Its has the Volvo Penta D11's with shaft drives and i can still have the Joystick.

I find the Sunseekers a bit bland and overpriced but their British and the customer service is really good. Plus i'll have alot of fun in a cruiser.

I just need to see what stock is available in South Carolina or Florida

Yeh ....”.expensive “Because to do it right a proper inline 6 of around 11 L and huge ( correctly mated twin disc type ) gearbox costs proper money to procure and instal .
Nice boats .....and at the risk of being boring ....theres a S/Sker dealer in La Napoule too .

Good call, a Hat 52

 

[ShaneAtSea]

I asked ^^^
“ Shane how technology minded are you ? “

let’s revisit the clutch issue , which has improved but basically still flawed and glossed over seemingly, folks enveloped in the marketing BS .
marine gearboxes and clutches

Then allow me to attempt to lay it out as simply as I can .
i,ll use pictures .
Hers a cone clutch note the surface area limitations in a outdrive or pod .A pod ( IPS ) is just a bigger outdrive in clutch terms .
View attachment 96289
Think of the mass , the momentum of the boat( s) over the years as they have got bigger ......We are up to a 52 specifically , but IPS instals are creeping up the ladder mass wise .Below is very simple pic of how cone clutches work ....think of the surface area available, the potential SA limited by the leg size .
View attachment 96292
View attachment 96293
View attachment 96294
Now see typical clutch packs of a conventional “twin disc“ set up ....Hurth and TD .As the masses of the boats increase in applications so does the clutch packs .....sized for longevity.
But crucially see with the clutch packs how you can adjust the SA in line with the mass .......thus if done correctly mating the Hp sent out by the motor with the mass and momentum of the boat .

So with IPS even with a computer ECU / hydraulics controller attempting to ease the cones engagement.....you are in a highway to rapid wear if there s a lot of FRFRFR and more so if you try to use the joystick , because of the huge mass and SA mismatch is amplified by the multiple engagements .

Theres no way around this .

Big boats needs shafts + proper twin discs multi pack wet clutches .

Cone clutches are the stuff of sterndrive little boats .....who’s mass / momentum can cope .

Thanks for the info.

I dont mind getting my hands dirty if i need to and fixing something is usually only a YouTube video away but i'll get a man (or women) to fix anything that breaks down.

However, i want to see the world, have fun and look at water while doing it.

That is my number one priority........everything else will just be a dropped stitch in life's rich tapestry